Everyone asks me how you are.

Okay, maybe not everyone, just the part of the world that doesn’t know we don’t talk, the people who don’t know that the last thing you said to me was to “move on,” the ones that I haven’t told that all I said was “okay,” before hanging up. You know: your ex-girlfriends, people I run into at the Co-Op, your friend’s mother.

I take it in stride. I repeat the things your best friend says to the people that haven’t heard, to the few that don’t know how things ended.

I stand still, look pretty, and act indifferent.

Maybe I twirl my hair, pull at my skirt, play with my jewelry. I’m not really sure. I try not to be completely there.

And then, if the person I am talking to takes the hint, the conversation changes to happier things: school and graduation, my dog, current boyfriends, and family. Basically, they then try to make up for talking about you by not talking about you.

Like it benefits me somehow that you no longer exist in my universe, except for the fact that I use your sheets and boxers to sleep in.